


bottom of your soul and be love.

by redhoods



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:27:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21874405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redhoods/pseuds/redhoods
Summary: There’s a moment and a look passes between the others, Jester, Beau, Nott, and Caduceus, like they’re trying to decide who’s going to be the one to speak up. No one looks towards Yasha, who is silently drinking from her tankard, and Caleb, who flips quietly to the next page of his book. Fjord sighs loudly and lifts his tankard to take a long drink, then another. He feels like he’s going to need it.“They are staging an intervention,” Caleb says suddenly beside him and Fjord nearly sloshes Beau with ale when he jerks in surprise.Beau shoves him back in Caleb’s direction and Fjord places his ale down before he really does spill it, “Yeah, what he said.”
Relationships: Fjord/Caleb Widogast
Comments: 12
Kudos: 460





	bottom of your soul and be love.

**Author's Note:**

> grey and i have talked a whole lot about the fact that like... caleb and fjord could've been together for like... most of the campaign and no one would know because no one has asked? the romance of it all. i've debated a lot on the whenwherewhyhow of it all, but ultimately in this, it's not the focus.
> 
> also lets all just pretend caleb didn't go see astrid alone cause that's better for all of our sanity, right?
> 
> title is from 5/6 by jason mraz which is on grey's [fjord playlist](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21501523). which is just... so good, y'all.

“Drinks on Fjord!” Beau crows as soon as they enter the tavern. Several people close to the door startle, but most people seem engrossed in their own drinks and business.

Fjord points a finger at her, “First round is on me, not all the drinks!” She grins at him, more a baring of her teeth, and he edges away towards the bar. He’s not running from the glint in her eye, not really, but he did promise the group their first round of drinks. They all deserve it, after everything they’ve gone through lately.

His coin purse is a little light, his pride is a little hurt, his body is a lot hurt, but he feels in good spirits, surrounded by his friends.

He doesn’t realize that he’s got company until he’s already leaning against the bar, giving the human behind the bar the usual rote order of the Nein, and someone declares, “And a glass of milk!” 

Leaning away, Fjord rubs his ear absently and nods at the bartender before looking to Jester with an eyebrow raised.

She grins at him, practically vibrating with all her pent up energy, “I came to help you carry the drinks, Fjord1” _Fee-yord_ is how she says it and alarm bells ring in his head, because when she says it like that, she’s up to something. He’s only thirty-three, but he feels far too old for this. ”You know, since I am very strong and you are... very good at other things!”

He squints at her, but she keeps grinning.

The bartender starts putting their tray of drinks together and Fjord dumps more coins than necessary on the bar top.

“Do you have milk?” Fjord asks, still aware of Jester next to him.

The man nods and holds up a finger. He disappears into the back and returns with an actual tankard of milk that he adds to the tray and Fjord sees Jester wink at the man out of the corner of his eye. Poor guy actually blushes, which makes her coo so Fjord gently elbows her and nods to the tray, “Why don’t you take this to the others before Beau gets too restless?”

“Good idea, Fjord!” She chirps and does it again, _Fee-yord_. It’s definitely on purpose. She disappears in a whirl of skirts, the spade of her tail smacking him on the ass as she goes and he turns to the bartender with his best “what can you do?” look.

“Is she -”

“- always like that? Yep,” he pops the ‘p’ and lifts one shoulder, “She mostly means well.”

The man looks in Jester’s direction and then back, “Anything else you need?”

“That’s all, thank you kindly,” Fjord lifts his fingers in a sort of salute, then turns to join the others.

They’ve taken over two tables which they’ve had to drag together to get enough chairs around it and even then, everyone’s sort of squished in. They’re all well used to it at this point, it’s hard to get space for a group like theirs without having to cram in.

In a place like this, it’s not really necessary, but it certainly feels intentional.

He’s not sure what’s up, but he doesn’t have to be smart like Caleb or perceptive like Caduceus to realize there’s something going on.

Jester’s grinning at him when he gets closer.

The only empty seat is between Beau and Caleb.

Ah.

He edges into the seat carefully, suddenly aware of the lack of space and even more aware of the breadth of his own shoulders. It’s not usually a problem, but now it means that every time he so much as budges, his arms brush both Beau and Caleb’s.

Beau hasn’t even started on her drink. Caleb on his other side, appears to be engrossed in whatever book he’s got now.

“What’s all this then?”

No one says anything, but everyone - except Caleb and Yasha - are looking his direction.

He waits.

He’s expecting Jester to break first, but she holds out, even if she’s wiggling around in her chair, fit to burst at the slightest provocation. He’s about to give her one when Nott practically throws herself across the table, shortsword in her hand.

At first, he thinks she’s coming for his throat, but realizes a beat later that she’s about to embed it into the table.

Beau’s fast enough to stop her, shooting her an incredulous look, but Nott’s eyes are on him and Fjord has the distinct feeling he should raise his hands in front of himself but determinedly doesn’t, leaving them loosely curled around his tankard.

The commotion draws Caleb out of his book, who surveys the scene in front of him and says, “I don’t want to know,” and looks back to his book.

Next to him, Beau chokes on a laugh that’s way too fond and they all pretend not to notice. She gently pulls the shortsword from Nott’s hand, “Nott,” she says evenly.

Nott withdraws, still partially on the table though, but Fjord knows that’s mostly because she wants to be part of whatever’s happening and sitting down in the chair only puts her a little above the level of the table. She’s still staring him down though and the hairs on the back of his neck raise.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to -”

“No, Jester,” Beau says.

“But it would -”

“Light touch,” Caduceus is the one to say this, though he’s still sitting there impassively, watching events unfold calmly. He’s produced a tea cup and tea from somewhere though Fjord missed where from.

Jester sticks her tongue out at Beau, nods at Caduceus, and then turns back to him.

“I would like it to be known that I still think this is a bad idea,” it’s Yasha, from Caleb’s other side and Fjord smiles gratefully at her. She nods at him and Beau sighs noisily on his left.

Fjord looks them all over, spares a brief glance at Caleb who still seems to be reading, “Anybody gonna tell me what this is?”

There’s a moment and a look passes between the others, Jester, Beau, Nott, and Caduceus, like they’re trying to decide who’s going to be the one to speak up. No one looks towards Yasha, who is silently drinking from her tankard, and Caleb, who flips quietly to the next page of his book. Fjord sighs loudly and lifts his tankard to take a long drink, then another. He feels like he’s going to need it.

“They are staging an intervention,” Caleb says suddenly beside him and Fjord nearly sloshes Beau with ale when he jerks in surprise.

Beau shoves him back in Caleb’s direction and Fjord places his ale down before he really does spill it, “Yeah, what he said.”

“An intervention about what?” Fjord asks carefully.

“You and Caleb, duh, Fjord!” Jester looks positively delighted.

“Me and Caleb?” He asks very slowly, looking at Caleb.

Caleb sighs heavily as he closes his book and tucks it away in his pack, “Ja, that is what she said.”

Fjord tries not to sag too obviously into his chair as he turns back to the others, eyebrows lifted, “What exactly are you intervening about?” He asks and pretends not to notice how Nott has her other shortsword in her hands.

“Look,” Beau says suddenly, talking over something that Jester had been about to say, “We all know that neither of you are good at this sort of shit, but it’s getting ridiculous.”

Jester is nodding so hard, Fjord’s a little worried about her neck, “Yes! You both are very good at talking, some of the time, but not all of the time,” she rattles on, “And especially not to each other. It’s a little sad, really,” her eyes get very big as she leans towards the both of them across the table, “We’re just worried about you.” She’s got a milk mustache that Fjord feels very gracious about not pointing out.

Caleb looks very resigned to this so Fjord takes a breath and blows it out and decides to let it happen.

Caduceus places his tea down and still looks very unruffled by all of this, Fjord wishes he had a little of his unflappable calm, “We’re not looking to pry into your personal business,” he says slowly, looking between he and Caleb, “but we’ve all noticed -”

“- you two making moon eyes at each other is making things weird!” Beau bursts out suddenly and everyone looks in her direction. Her shoulders hunch, “Don’t look at me like that, we all agreed to this!” She says vehemently in the direction of her cohorts in all of this.

There’s several beats of silence where Fjord watches Nott make a valiant effort at emptying her flask before she places it down and wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. Her second shortsword is missing now and he sees the glint of it as Yasha tucks it away. Nott doesn’t seem to notice as she gets half on the table again, pointing a finger in his direction, “I’ve seen the way you look at my boy and I don’t like it,” she looks to Caleb and softens a little, her hand wavering, “but he does so like -” she claps her hands together suddenly and half the table jumps, “Do something about it already!”

“The tension is killing us,” Jester says, leaning over Nott’s shoulders to peer at them with very wide, imploring eyes.

Caleb breaks first.

He starts laughing, this rasping sound that bubbles up in his throat and spills out.

Beau makes a weird sound next to him, “Is he dying?” She asks incredulously.

Jester sits back and looks to Caduceus, who actually looks baffled now.

Nott squints between the two of them.

Fjord loses it then, curling forward and touching his forehead to the table as his shoulders shake with laughter.

That’s the only sound from their table for several minutes, he and Caleb laughing, then furious whispers coming from Jester and Nott across from them. “Have you two been eating those fruits?” Jester declares suddenly and Fjord looks up and sees her stern drawn eyebrows and loses it again.

Caleb pulls it together faster than him, shaking his head as he rubs his palms against his eyes, “No, I do not think those are good any longer anyways,” and turns his attention calmly to Caduceus as if looking for confirmation. 

Caduceus nods, “You are correct about that, Mr. Caleb, those have long passed their freshness threshold.”

Beau makes another weird sound, a little like she’s being strangled, “Really? We’re talking about ball tripping fruit instead of why the two of you lost your shit?” She jabs him hard in the side and Fjord jerks hard, bumping into Caleb, who merely pats his arm like it’s a comfort against Beau’s assault on his person. 

“I told you,” Yasha says suddenly from her end of the table.

Beau shoves a hand against his shoulder to try and shove him out of the way, even as she leans around him to peer down the table at Yasha, “We had this conversation.”

“There’s no way we wouldn’t notice!” Jester says, nodding as she turns to Yasha as well.

“Caleb would tell me!” Nott produces a dagger from somewhere and jams that into the table before anyone can stop her.

Everyone else is looking at Yasha, except Caduceus, who’s squinting between him and Caleb. Fjord’s seen that look on his face before and he squirms a little under it before he can stop himself. He nods suddenly, “Yasha is right.”

The whole focus of the table shifts to the other end now, where Caduceus is, then the table erupts, everyone talking at once.

Fjord shakes his head and leans his shoulder against Caleb’s, ducks his head down, “You alright with this?”

“Ja,” Caleb replies, almost immediately, “It was only a matter of time.”

When he lifts his head again, everyone is staring at the two of them.

“I’ll be fucking damned,” Beau declares suddenly, then shoves her hand against his face to move him again as she looks down the table, “Yasha, how did you know?”

Yasha’s smile is small and sad as she says, “I have experience with keeping these sorts of secrets.”

Everyone eases back then and Fjord sees Caleb nod at Yasha out of the corner of his eye, but he’s more interested in the way that Nott is holding her dagger across the table. He wouldn’t be surprised if her crossbow was pointed at him under the table at this point, but he’s not about to look.

Jester is smiling very small at Yasha for a long beat, something about her expression torn, before she turns to him. It’s hard for him to tell, he’s not good at reading people, but she doesn’t seem upset, “How long?”

Caleb’s hand touches his thigh under the table.

“Wait,” Beau says, holding up a finger, and then, “Wait. I want to guess, now.” That gets everyone’s interest and Fjord sighs, resigning himself to this as well.

Nott squints at them, “It has to be recent, right?” She doesn’t wait for a response, “Like after Fjord through his creepy eye sword in the lava?” She’s looking at Caleb very closely and Fjord glad her attention is off him for the moment.

“Nott, please put the weapons away,” Caleb implores and she huffs quietly, but does as he asks, placing both hands on the table top. He smiles at her and snaps Frumpkin into this dimension, plopping the fey creature right into her lap. “Also, not quite,” he adds with a sheepish hunch of his shoulders.

“Diver’s Grave,” Jester says suddenly, very serious and quiet as she looks between the two of them, and then pointedly drops her gaze to where Fjord’s scarred hand is on the table. He curls his fingers absently.

Beau squints, “Now that you say that...” Her hand darts out and she’s too fast, her hand wrapping around Fjord’s wrist and pressing his hand palm up on the table, “Blood pacts really do just scream romance,” she intones.

Caduceus hums, “I’ve seen platonic blood pacts in my time.”

There’s a moment where none of them know what to say and Beau releases his wrist.

Nott leans forward, squinting at Caleb, “That’s it, isn’t it? When we were in the Happy Fun Time Ball the first time—” they all shudder, “—you didn’t care about the books, you wanted to find Fjord.”

Fjord glances at Caleb, whose face is turning an interesting shade of pink, “Is that right?”

Caleb draws in a very purposeful breath and releases it, meeting Nott’s gaze, then shakes his head slowly, but his fingers tighten on Fjord’s thigh and he tucks that information away for a later time.

“I think it was Darktow,” Yasha says, though she’s glancing down at her tankard like she’s not seeing it, like she’s remembering something, “When Caleb went down on the docks,” she continues and lifts her gaze to Fjord, like she’s looking for something. He swallows then nods, “I don’t know if the rest of you saw it,” she looks briefly at Caduceus and Nott.

“I was trying to get to Caleb,” Caduceus replies.

Nott scowls, “I was trying to stay out of manacles,” she turns a slightly apologetic glance at Caleb.

Yasha nods, “The look on Fjord’s face,” she carries on again, but she’s directing it at Caleb, and there’s something there, a conversation he wasn’t privy to at some point, but the two of them have bonded over something, “The way he yelled at the guards.”

Fjord swallows and attention is on him again.

“Make your guesses, I will tell you who is correct and then we can move on with our night,” Caleb says suddenly. Relief bursts in Fjord’s chest and he tries not to sag in his seat, covering Caleb’s hand with his own and squeezing it gently.

“Darktow,” Yasha says again.

Nott and Jester look at each other and nod, “Diver’s Grave.”

There’s a lapse where Beau squints at the two of them, “I think its been longer than that, before the boat,” she says, like she’s seriously thinking about it, “When we got back to Zadash, after,” she doesn’t say but they all know what she means.

Everyone looks to Caduceus, who blinks at them, “Oh, you’re waiting on my guess?” He rubs his hand over his chin and then shakes his head, “I can’t say as though I have one.”

Caleb looks to him and Fjord nods slowly, then Caleb looks to the others again, “It was before Darktow, on Avantika’s ship,” he says and there’s a long moment of stunned silence as the others process.

That moment turns into two and then longer, so Fjord picks up his tankard and starts drinking, waiting for whoever’s going to react first.

Beau matches him, picking up her tankard, but slams it down before it makes it to her mouth. Some of the ale sloshes over her fingers as she turns suddenly to Caleb, “That’s why you were all weird,” she says, pointing an accusing, ale covered finger at Caleb, “you were just... worried.”

“Is that so surprising?” Caleb asks, his hand turning under Fjord’s to link their fingers together, “Even if we were not together at the time?”

There’s a brief pause and Fjord sighs loudly, “It’s fine, you can say it, most of you expected me to turn power hungry,” he says. It doesn’t sting, mostly cause he’d thought about it, thought about taking the third orb, rest of the world be damned if he could be strong enough to keep himself and his friends safe.

He hadn’t though and he’s glad he hadn’t.

They wouldn’t be here if he had.

“Thats been months,” Jester says then, “before Rosahna.”

“Almost five,” Caleb answers.

Nott is staring down at Frumpkin in her lap, “Why didn’t you say anything?” She doesn’t sound particularly upset but Fjord can’t tell, “All this time, I’ve been pressuring you about Astrid and everything, when you’ve been—” she looks up and curls her lip at Fjord suddenly, “If you hurt him.”

Fjord nods at her.

She nods back.

“We’ve been taking our time,” Fjord explains, answering the asked and unasked questions he thinks are there, “figuring out ourselves separately and together,” Caleb’s thumb brushes over his knuckles and he exhales slowly, “we wanted to learn how we fit together without outside influence.”

Caduceus is smiling, even as the others process, “I think that’s great,” he says, “I think that’s very fair too,” he adds, “I’ve never done the—” he gestures at them, “but I think that’s important.”

Beau makes a weird sound next to him, “It’s like... fucking mature of you when you put it like that.”

“I am capable of maturity,” Fjord says with a delicate sniff.

“When there’s not shiny stuff to touch,” Jester points out, a small smile on her face.

“Are you happy?” Yasha asks suddenly, her mismatched gaze focused on Caleb, intent and serious, searching. There’s more to her question, that connection the two of them have over their shared traumas, and Fjord feels the ache of it in his chest for the both of them.

Caleb’s hand squeezes tight around his, “Ja,” is all he says and she nods slowly, relaxing back against her chair, staring down at her tankard, lost once more to her thoughts.

Beau huffs, “Okay, well, if we’re done with all this sappy shit,” she declares, “I’m getting drunk.”

\-----

As the group makes their way back to the cottage, Fjord finds himself at the back of the group with Caleb, warm to his toes and certain that he’s going to have many aches to contend with in the morning and finding that he doesn’t mind when Caleb’s arm slides around his back. He drapes his arm across Caleb’s shoulders, watching Beau stumble against Jester and stay there.

Nott is draped across Yasha’s shoulders in a strange parody of Caleb and Frumpkin and she is singing some sort of bawdy tavern song though he can barely make out most of the words because of her slurring and also the fact that she doesn’t actually seem to know most of the words.

Caleb’s hand squeezes his side and Fjord turns his head to press a kiss to the crown of Caleb’s hair, says there, “You owe me five gold.”

The responding laugh from Caleb fills his chest with warmth and is worth any amount of teasing they’re bound to draw from the others once any hangovers have abated.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm [@vowofenmity](https://twitter.com/vowofenmity) on twitter.
> 
> uhhhh merry widofjord christmas to y'all today, i guess.
> 
> caleb and fjord definitely had a bet on how long it would take the others to notice and/or speak up.


End file.
